CleanTech Challenge

The CleanTech Challenge was founded three years ago when oil had reached a total of 140 $ a drum. At that time there were good economic reasons for the development of alternative energy sources and to search for a more efficient use of existing sources.
For the first time to find alternative sources or increase the efficient use of current ones became critical.
Since then oil price had several ups & downs but the demand for energy has continued to grow steadily and there are good reasons to think that it will continue to grow.
This is shown by a growing awareness by governments of major industrialized countries to environmental issues. Despite the failures of leadership on climate change in Copenhagen and Cancun remains a topic on the agenda of politicians and governments. Laws and regulations have proliferated as well as initiatives such as carbon trading, designed to regulate and provide "incentives framework" that reduces the use of fossil fuels. This phenomenon has generated considerable interest among investors to the possible applications of “Clean” technologies which can provide an answer to the rising demand.
 

Today there are proven technologies developed for other purposes which with creativity and intelligence could be used as a clean technology for other applications.
There are a large number of scientists and engineering researchers who everyday exploit their skills and known technologies with the purpose of developing a new "Clean" application.
At the same time there is a multitude of students from the best business schools that have gained the knowledge of the best functioning models of markets and are looking for new products, services and processes that can meet existing or latent needs of consumers. However they lack the technological know-how most of the times.

The challenge is to create new products, services and processes that could:

• generate new sources of sustainable energy
• increase efficiency in the generation, storage and transmission of existing ones
• develop products, services and processes that result in lower energy consumption
• develop products, services and processes that reduce environmental impact through a more efficient use of raw materials and a reduction of generated waste.

Phase 1:
the aim is to bring together these two communities in order to propose solutions in “Clean” technology applications field.
At this stage the expectation is that ideas will be already fully developed, main thing is presenting ideas in a formalized manner.
The goal is to collect as many ideas as possible (ranking is a minor issue!)

Phase 2
setting up teams of individuals from different backgrounds (technology and business).
Teams will be set up in order to represent the greatest diversity of perspectives, experiences and business and technology know-how.
There is no claim that these teams should be able to bring the idea to a business success.

Phase 3:
the goal is to encourage teams to develop a plan to bring the idea to the next stage, so called 'proof-of-concept'. At this point, funding for 'proof-of-concept' are relatively easy to find the most promising proposals through:

• Attracting venture capitals of Clean Technology Funds
• Licensing the idea to an existing company
• Becoming self-sufficient (in other words being able to generate revenues that would obviate the need for additional external investments - unlikely but still possible outcome).

Most of the competitions, in which is asked of creating a business plan, are a “terrific learning experience” and an excellent mechanism to stimulate students to think, but they generally give a little chance to transform idea into practice. So, often projects resolve in a “paper” document that doesn’t focus on risks and challenges, typical of new businesses. Rarely these competitions offer participants the opportunity to develop early concepts.

Clean Tech Challenge is different:
First of all, the competition goal aims to meet existing needs and not yet satisfied.
Moreover there is a willingness of investors to bet on the most promising ideas.
And last but not least, the main work of the teams consist in "decreasing the risk level" of a business idea or, in other words, in maximizing its value by considering all possible implications and creating a business model that works.

In short: we want to create sustainable initiatives.
 

Cleantech is a term used to describe products or services that improve operational performance of productivity or efficiency, which impact on cost reduction, energy consumption, waste amount and pollution generated.

CleanTech is also a term that is often associated with venture capital funds.

Identifying what is or is not Cleantech is not so easy.